


The Ghostly Beekeeper

by ChrisCalledMeSweetie



Series: Spooky Johnlock Stories [9]
Category: Sherlock (TV)
Genre: M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-09-22
Updated: 2019-09-22
Packaged: 2020-10-26 07:22:09
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,129
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/20738414
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ChrisCalledMeSweetie/pseuds/ChrisCalledMeSweetie
Summary: Rosie Watson-Holmes shares the story of her father’s great tragedy.





	The Ghostly Beekeeper

**Author's Note:**

  * For [PatPrecieux](https://archiveofourown.org/users/PatPrecieux/gifts).

> This story is based on Saki’s classic The Open Window. I have chosen not to use archive warnings so as not to spoil it for readers who are unfamiliar with the original. However, if you want you can click on "See the end of the work for more notes" for full spoilery disclosure.

"My father will be down presently, Mr. Nuttall," said a very self-possessed young lady of fifteen. "In the meantime you must try and put up with me.”

Thomas Nuttall felt all the awkwardness of the situation. 

"I know how it will be," his grandmother had said to him when he’d brought up his intention of moving to Sussex; "you will bury yourself down there and not speak to a living soul, and your nerves will be worse than ever.” He certainly did feel anxious, but his grandmother’s insistence that he call on Dr. Watson was increasing rather than lessening his anxiety. He hoped the man and his daughter would not think him unpardonably strange for arriving at their door uninvited.

"Do you know many of the people round here?" asked the daughter, when she judged that they had had sufficient silent communion.

"Hardly a soul," said Thomas. “I’m thinking of moving down here from Yorkshire, and my grandmother made me promise to pay a visit to the local doctor before I made my decision. I suffer from what she likes to refer to as ‘a nervous condition’ and she wanted to be assured that there was competent medical help nearby. 

"Then you know practically nothing about my father?" pursued the self-possessed young lady.

"Only his name and address," admitted the visitor.

“My father’s great tragedy happened exactly three years ago," said the girl. “I don’t suppose you’ve heard about it?”

"His tragedy?" asked Thomas; somehow in this restful country spot tragedies seemed out of place.

"You may wonder why we keep that window wide open so late on an October afternoon," said the daughter, indicating a large French window that opened onto a lawn.

"It is quite warm for the time of the year," said Thomas. "But has that window got anything to do with the tragedy?”

"Out through that window, exactly three years ago today, my father’s husband went off to tend to his hives, accompanied by our little white terrier, Pearl. He always wore a full beekeepers’ suit, since he was deathly allergic to beestings, but on that day he must have caught the netting on something sharp, and torn a hole in it. When Pearl came racing back to the house alone, yapping frantically, my father dashed down to the hives at once. But he was too late — his husband had been stung, and was already dead from anaphylaxis. 

“He was buried in the churchyard that borders the back of our land. It was no great loss to me, since I never cared for the man, but Pearl sat by his grave for days, refusing to eat or drink, until she died of a broken heart.” 

Here the girl's voice lost its self-possessed note and became falteringly human. “I was afraid my father would die of grief, too, but instead of losing his life, he only lost a bit of his mind. He always thinks that his husband will come back someday, along with our little white terrier, and walk in at that window just as he used to do. That is why the window is kept open every evening till it is quite dusk. Do you know, sometimes on still, quiet evenings like this, I almost get a creepy feeling that they really will walk in through that window—”

She broke off with a little shudder. It was a relief to Thomas when the girl’s father bustled into the room with a whirl of apologies for being late in making his appearance.

"I hope Rosie has been amusing you?" he said.

"She has been very interesting, Dr. Watson,” said Thomas.

“Oh, call me John,” said the man jovially. “I hope you don't mind the open window. My husband will be back soon from tending his bees, and he always comes in this way."

John Watson rattled on cheerfully about the work of preparing the hives for winter, and the excellence of the honey the bees produced. To Thomas it was all purely horrible. He made a desperate but only partially successful effort to turn the talk onto a less ghastly topic. 

Thomas was conscious that his host was giving him only a fragment of his attention, and John’s eyes were constantly straying past him to the open French window and the lawn beyond. It was certainly an unfortunate coincidence that he should have paid his visit on this tragic anniversary.

“My grandmother agrees with the doctors that I need a calm and peaceful setting for the sake of my mental health,” announced Thomas. "On the matter of whether Sussex would provide that setting they are not so much in agreement," he continued.

"No?" said John, in a voice which only replaced a yawn at the last moment. Then he suddenly brightened into alert attention — but not to what Thomas was saying.

"Here he is at last!" he cried. "Just in time for tea.”

Thomas shivered slightly and turned towards Rosie with a look intended to convey sympathetic comprehension. The girl was staring out through the open window with a dazed horror in her eyes. In a chill shock of nameless fear Thomas swung round in his seat and looked in the same direction.

In the deepening twilight a tall figure, garbed from head to toe in the protective suit of a beekeeper, was walking across the lawn towards the French window. The netting around the head made it impossible to see the face within. A little white terrier trotted like a ghostly shadow at the figure’s heels. Noiselessly they neared the house, and then a deep voice called out of the dusk: “John, I’m home at last.”

Thomas dashed wildly from the room; the hall door, the gravel drive, and the front gate were dimly noted stages in his headlong retreat. A cyclist coming along the road had to run into the hedge to avoid imminent collision.

“Hello, my loves," said the figure in the beekeeper’s suit, coming in through the French window. “Who was that who bolted out as I came up?"

"Thomas Nuttall," said John. “He’s thinking about moving into the neighborhood. I would have liked to hear your deductions about him, but he dashed off without a word when you arrived. One would think he had seen a ghost."

"I expect it was Pearl who frightened him," said Rosie calmly. "He told me he had a horror of dogs. He was once hunted into a cemetery somewhere on the banks of the Ganges by a pack of pariah dogs, and had to spend the night in a newly dug grave with the creatures snarling and foaming just above him. Enough to make anyone lose their nerve."

Fifteen years of living with Sherlock had given Rosie Watson-Holmes a quick-thinking flair for the dramatic.

**Author's Note:**

> SPOILERS FOR THOSE WHO CLICKED HERE DIRECTLY AFTER READING THE BEGINNING NOTE: No Archive Warnings Apply. Contrary to what Rosie tells her unfortunate visitor, Sherlock and the dog are alive and well and much beloved.
> 
> I'm on a bit of a Saki kick. Yesterday I posted [A Most Improper Story](https://archiveofourown.org/works/20716805). If you enjoyed this, check that one out. I've also already written my entry for A Halloween 13 Johnlock and Mystrade Advent Calendar based on another Saki tale, but I won't be able to post it until October. If you don't want to miss out, you can subscribe to my [A Sackful of Saki](https://archiveofourown.org/series/1492898) series.
> 
> Kind comments and kudos make me smile. 😊


End file.
